1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus which performs a liquid ejecting operation of ejecting a liquid onto a landing target and a method of controlling the liquid ejecting apparatus. In particular, the invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus capable of executing a maintenance operation separately from the liquid ejecting operation and a method of controlling the liquid ejecting apparatus.
2. Related Art
In the related art, JP-A-2002-144548 discloses an ink jet printing apparatus as a liquid ejecting apparatus performing a flushing operation as a maintenance operation. JP-A-2002-144548 discloses that a flush box that receives an ink discharged from a recording head is disposed in an area other than a recording area in a movable range of an ink jet type recording head (hereinafter, recording head) as a type of a liquid ejecting head in a main scanning direction, that is, in a position deviated from an area in which a printing operation (liquid ejecting operation) is performed on a printing medium (recording medium) in the main scanning direction, and the flushing operation is executed in a state where the recording head faces the flush box. The flushing operation ejects an ink through nozzles to the flush box a predetermined number of times to discharge a thickened ink within the ink head (in particular, in the vicinity of the nuzzle) separately from the liquid ejecting operation (recording operation) for recording an image or the like on a recording medium for the intended use of the ink jet printing apparatus.
In general, since the recording head is moved above the flush box deviated from the recording area to perform the flushing operation in the position, the flushing operation is not simultaneously performed with the recording operation on a recording medium, and therefore, the recording operation needs to be interrupted during the period. In addition, if the recording head is positioned on a side where the flush box is not provided, that is, on a side opposite to the flush box in the main scanning direction, the recording head is moved to a side where the flush box is provided to perform the flushing operation after being moved. It takes time for such movement, resulting in increase of an interruption period of the recording operation.
In addition, in order to shorten the interruption period of the above-described recording operation as much as possible, a configuration is also proposed in which the flushing operation is performed between transporting operations between an operation where a recording medium is discharged from the liquid ejecting apparatus after finishing the recording operation on the recording medium and an operation where a new recording medium is supplied to a stage (platen) on which the recording operation is performed (also referred to as flushing between pages). However, there is a case where the flushing operation required for discharging the thickened ink is not completed during the transporting operation. In addition, if the flushing operation is executed every time between the pages, the interruption period of the recording operation becomes as long as that period. As a result, throughput of the process of the entire recording operation is reduced.
Such a problem also exists in other liquid ejecting apparatuses capable of executing the maintenance operation ejecting a liquid to a liquid receiving part separately from the liquid ejecting operation as original use of the liquid ejecting apparatus as well as in the ink jet printing apparatus equipped with the recording head ejecting an ink.